France captain Henry has been at the centre of real controversy after he handled the ball in extra time before passing for William Gallas to score in Wednesday night's World Cup play-off between the two countries. That goal ensured Les Bleus won 2-1 on aggregate to qualify for the finals in South Africa.

The Football Association of Ireland made a formal complaint to FIFA but the governing body announced on Friday that they would not consider a replay of the game, with referee Martin Hansson's decision remaining final.

France coach Raymond Domenech does not believe his country should be forced to apologise for the referee's failure to spot the blatant handball but just hours after FIFA firmly ruled out a replay, Henry has stated he feels that would have been the fairest way to end the heated row.

"Naturally I feel embarrassed at the way that we won and feel extremely sorry
for the Irish who definitely deserve to be in South Africa," said Henry. "Of course the fairest solution would be to replay the game but it is not in
my control.''

Henry's character has been strongly called into question following the incident but the Barcelona striker is adamant that the handball was nothing more than an "instinctive reaction" and that he is not a cheat.

"There is little more I can do apart from admit that the ball
had contact with my hand leading up to our equalising goal and I feel very sorry
for the Irish," Henry said.

"I have said at the time and I will say again that yes I handled the ball. I am not a cheat and never have been. It was an instinctive reaction to a ball that was coming extremely fast in a crowded penalty area.

"As a footballer you do not have the luxury of the television to slow the pace
of the ball down 100 times to be able to make a conscious decision. People are viewing a slow motion version of what happened and not what I or
any other footballer faces in the game.

"If people look at it in full speed you will see that it was an instinctive
reaction. It is impossible to be anything other than that. I have never denied that the
ball was controlled with my hand. I told the Irish players, the referee and the
media this after the game.''

Arsene Wenger, who signed Henry for Arsenal in 1999 and turned him into one of the Premier League's greatest ever players, has echoed the striker's calls for the game to be replayed.

Wenger - who famously agreed to a replay of an FA Cup tie against
Sheffield United in 1999 - believes France have a responsibility to uphold the
spirit of the game and make the gesture of a replay.

"I support France and it is embarrassing to qualify the way we qualified. We
want to beat Ireland properly and that didn't happen,'' Wenger said. "At the end of the day you can talk and talk and talk, or you replay, or you don't replay.

"Thierry Henry was the big loser in this story. If he had come out [at the time] and said it was handball, half of France
would have said, 'how crazy is he, not to get us to the World Cup?' If he doesn't say it straight away, he is also guilty. The problem is not Thierry Henry, it is above Thierry Henry.

"He played here for 10 years and has always been super fair. He has come out and said 'I made a mistake, I touched the ball with my hand'.
That is honest. Let's make sure it doesn't happen again because we could see it
every week.

"Football and sport in general is full of heroes who have cheated ten times more than Thierry. For me people who bought referees, who took drugs, they are the real cheats
in sport. Thierry Henry has years of fair behaviour behind him and he today is singled
out in the wrong way.

"A player of his stature has a massive pressure on his shoulders and if
somebody has to do something for Thierry, it is French football and France as a
country, not to leave him out there alone against the whole world. France has to say 'yes it was a handball and we offer a replay'.''

Wenger has long been an advocate of video technology to aid match officials -
with events in Paris on Wednesday night once again opening the long-standing
debate over just how to make sure the big decisions are always called
correctly.

"What is terrible for the referee is that he gave the goal knowing something
was not regular, yet he had no help,'' said Wenger. "I saw him walk from the linesman to the middle of the park, thinking 'I have
to give that goal', knowing it is not a regular goal. That is where football is
guilty.

"They [FIFA] have come out with a solution with one guy behind the goal, but the best one is technology. The biggest anger for me is that we are still in 2009, sitting here where
millions of people see what happened, one guy doesn't see it and we can't help
him. Football is the most popular sport in the world and we are still having to
endure these kinds of mistakes.''

The Republic of Ireland would almost certainly not be able to challenge FIFA in
the Court of Arbitration for Sport over replaying the World Cup play-off with
France. The FAI are considering their next move - but
any appeal to CAS looks unlikely to get off the ground.

Stephen Townley, a London lawyer who also acts as an arbitrator for CAS, said
he believes the Lausanne-based court would not be able to become involved.

"Looking at FIFA's statutes, this would come under violation of the laws of the game, in which case CAS could not pick up the dispute," Townley said.